With just a shovel and a strap from their fish house, two teenagers became heroes in a west metro town. On Nov. 23, Alex Stark and Cody Clements were ice fishing on Long Lake when the two men next to them went through the ice.

Having moved to Minnesota from Florida, my scariest aquatic experience involved a water temperature below 80 degrees, until Tuesday. I put on a protective “mustang” suit, ready for a mock water rescue in icy Lake Minnetonka with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Water Patrol. Not yet at ice’s edge, I was already panic stricken. I can’t imagine this as my job.